Gender discrimination is never acceptable in the workplace. Unfortunately, it happens far too often throughout Southern California. For many years, women have been paid less for performing the same job as their male counterparts. Congress passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to eliminate these unethical business practices. Yet, the same discriminatory practices continue at many businesses, companies, and corporations to this day. The statistics do not lie. Although the Equal Pay Act has narrowed the gender salary gap, women still make 77 cents for every dollar for a man. The numbers are even worse for minority women. My name is Jeffrey Rager and I am a Los Angeles Equal Pay Act violation attorney. The employment attorneys at Rager & Yoon – Employment Lawyers
are committed to helping those who have been a victim of workplace discrimination.
HOW EMPLOYERS JUSTIFY EQUAL PAY ACT VIOLATIONS
Many employers use a variety of excuses and unethical practices to justify paying female employees a lesser salary. But if you are making less money than a male co-worker for performing the same work, your employer is obligated to show their justification for paying you less. Unfortunately, these unethical business practices do not just happen to women. It also happens to seniors and many other groups. Under the Equal Pay Act, employers can justify paying a female worker less if it is based on legitimate seniority, incentive, or merit system. Both the employer and worker must be aware of the system. The system must be executed in good faith and include the following conditions:- All employees must be aware of the conditions
- The incentive, merit and seniority system must be consistently and evenly applied to all employees
- It must be adopted without the intent of discrimination between male and female employees
- The agreement must be based on predetermined criteria that measure productivity, seniority, and merit.
- It must be the only reason for salary differences between male and female employees